Understanding Community Attitudes Towards Tourism and Host ...

Tourism Geographies Vol. 8, No. 2, 182–204, May 2006

Understanding Community Attitudes Towards Tourism and Host–Guest Interaction in the Urban–Rural Border Region JIAYING ZHANG,∗ ROBERT J. INBAKARAN∗ & MERVYN S. JACKSON∗∗ ∗ School

of Management, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia of Health Sciences, RMIT University, Bundoora, Australia

∗∗ School

ABSTRACT An improved understanding of both community attitudes toward tourism and host–guest interaction is vital for the sustainable development of tourism. However, there are significant research deficiencies and gaps in these two related research areas. This conceptual paper looks into these glaring research gaps through a review of literature and attempts to provide solutions suggested by an ongoing research project being conducted in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. In particular, while this paper addresses the impacts of personality and ethnicity on community attitudes toward tourism and points to the urgent need for a wellestablished theoretical framework in order to understand and predict host–guest interaction, it also highlights the above issues in the context of the urban–rural fringe, the bordering region connecting neat ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ areas. KEY WORDS: Community attitude, host–guest interaction, urban–rural fringe, Five Factor Model, expectancy value theories

Introduction The sustainable development of tourism requires harmonious relationships between communities, the industry and tourists. However, literature suggests that tourism development has created both positive and negative impacts on communities. As a consequence, community residents hold different attitudes towards tourism development. Residents who do not support the development of tourism have been identified in almost all segmentation studies concerning attitudes towards tourism, namely Correspondence Address: Jiaying Zhang, School of Management, RMIT University, GPO box 2476V, Melbourne 3001, Australia. Fax: +61 3 96547483; Tel.: +61 3 99251698; Email: jiaying.zhang@ rmit.edu.au C 2006 Taylor & Francis ISSN 1461-6688 Print/1470-1340 Online /06/02/00182–23 DOI: 10.1080/14616680600585455

Interactions in the Urban–Rural Border Region

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‘Haters’ (Davis et al. 1988; Madrigal 1995), ‘Cynics’ (Williams and Lawson 2001) or ‘Somewhat Irritated’ (Ryan and Montgomery 1994). In some communities, the proportion of ‘Haters’ exceeds that of ‘Lovers’ (residents who support the development of tourism). It is hard to believe that tourism can develop in a sustainable way in those communities where a large proportion of residents hold negative attitudes or behave in an unfriendly manner when interacting with tourists. In an attempt to explain the antecedents of community attitudes towards tourism, researchers have examined the impacts of demographic and sociographic factors extensively. However, ethnicity and psychological factors, such as the impacts of personality, have been less well studied in the mainstream literature. Moreover, a review of the literature on host–guest relationships shows that there is a lack of a theoretical foundation in modelling this behaviour. The existing theoretical frameworks that have been utilized in the limited number of hosts–guest interaction studies are simplistic. This research paper examines the existing literature concerned with the understanding of community attitudes towards tourism and host–guest interaction. It neither analyses the results from the questionnaire survey, nor does it try to interpret strategies of community based tourism. However, it draws attention to some of the glaring research gaps in the much-researched topic of understanding community attitudes towards tourism and, while doing so, highlights the need to introduce established socio-psychological theories into host–guest interaction studies. This paper also attempts to address these two issues in the context of the urban–rural fringe, which is considered to be a border region connecting urban and rural areas. From a geographical viewpoint, the urban–rural fringe, compared with either urban or rural regions, has drawn much less attention in regard to the two issues discussed in this paper. A distinguishing characteristic of the urban–rural fringe is the rapid pace of change, which generates more tension, competition and conflicts (Weaver and Lawton 2001). Featuring natural sceneries, such as lakes, rivers, mountains, parks or wildlife and being an ideal location usually with easy access from major city centres, the urban– rural fringe attracts more and more tourists to this region. Thus, the fast development of tourism ‘adds yet another ingredient to the complex mixture of factors that generate conflict for resources in the urban–rural fringe’ (Weaver and Lawton 2001: 441). In order to address the research deficiency with regard to community attitudes towards tourism and host–guest interaction in the context of urban–rural fringe, this research was conducted in the urban–rural fringe of Melbourne, capital of the State of Victoria, Australia. This region functions not only as the gateway to regional (rural) Victoria but is also endowed with several urban and regional tourist attractions usually sought after by domestic and international visitors alike. As a former capital of Australia as well as a pioneering gold prospecting region in Australia, Melbourne has been a popular tourism destination for many decades. By virtue of its maritime cool temperate, Mediterranean climatic influence and notable multicultural characteristics, Melbourne’s urban–rural fringe has been one of the fastest growing tourism regions of

184 Jiaying Zhang et al. Australia. The population that resides within its confines has witnessed many changes over the past years due to tourism and other economic and industrial activities. Literature Review Community’s Attitudes Toward Tourism Primarily, tourism researchers have focused on travellers, their needs, behaviours and motivations (Krippendorf 1987; Sharpley 1994). Much research has been conducted for the convenience of tourists, while local community perceptions and attitudes towards the industry have been given less of a priority (Murphy 1985). Krippendorf (1987) further pointed out that the psychology and sociology of tourism had been largely concerned with travellers’ views and behaviour. Nevertheless, destination communities have been inconvenienced by congestion and some other negative impacts brought by tourism (Brunt and Courtney 1999). Any impacts from tourism causing annoyance or anger in the host community may lead to problems for the long-term sustainable development of the industry. Therefore, Murphy (1985: 133) argued ‘if tourism is to merit its pseudonym of being “the hospitality industry”, it must look beyond its own doors and employees to consider the social and cultural impacts it is having on the host community at large’. It has now become widely recognized that planners and entrepreneurs must take the views of the host community into account if the industry wants to pursue the goal of sustainable development (Allen et al. 1988; Ap and Crompton 1993). Studying host community attitudes and the antecedents of resident reaction can help both residents and planners (Williams and Lawson 2001). Williams and Lawson argued that it was possible to select those developments that can minimize negative impacts and maximize support for the industry. By doing so, on one hand the quality of life of residents can be maintained or enhanced; and, on the other hand, the negative impacts of tourism in the community will be reduced. Most tourism impact studies are conducted through measuring residents’ attitudes toward tourism and the effects that are perceived by community residents. The history of the study of tourism impacts can be traced back to the 1960s when the more positive impacts of tourism development were defined and reported. Conversely, many studies in the 1970s focused on the negative dimensions. The 1980s brought a more balanced approach where research highlighted both positive and negative impacts (Inbakaran and Jackson 2004). In the new century, tourism impact studies continue to focus on the fast growth of tourism industry, lifestyle changes and emergence of new characteristics of tourism development. Theoretical Foundations Within the considerable body of work related to tourism impacts and community attitudes towards tourism, attempts to model community residents’ attitudes toward


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tourism have been, to date, relatively simplistic. Liu and Var (1986: 196) summarized the weakness of theoretical foundation in this research area as ‘the absence of a comprehensive tourism theory, a dearth of proven methodologies to measure noneconomic impacts, and a lack of strong empirical foundation upon which to base policy decisions’. Faulkner and Tideswell (1997) pointed out that the lack of progress in the field of community attitude study is a reflection of two limitations. First, existing theories are fragmented and need to be integrated into a more general framework. Secondly, the theory developed so far has remained at the level of a series of assertions which need to be tested further in a systematic way. Among these fragmented theories, there has been widespread reference to what is known as the stage or step-based models. Perhaps the most commonly referred to are Doxey’s (1975) Irridex model and Butler’s (1980) Tourism Destination Life Cycle Model. Doxey’s (1975) Irridex model, or Irritation Index, is a four-stage theory explaining host community responses to tourism development. Recognizing that adverse impacts of tourism development in the community might lead to irritation, Doxey’s (1975) Irridex model suggests that with the increase in the number of tourists and development of tourism resorts, residents’ attitudes change from ‘euphoria’ to ‘apathy’ to ‘annoyance’ and then to ‘antagonism’. Doxey also argues that residents’ irritation is determined by the degree of incompatibility between residents and tourists. Butler’s (1980) Tourism Destination Lifecycle Model identifies tourism development in a destination in six stages, namely exploration, involvement, development, consolidation, stagnation and then either decline or rejuvenation. Butler asserts that the number and type of tourists change according to tourism infrastructure, environment and level of competition. It is suggested that when tourism activities lead to high-volume mass tourism then impacts may eventually reach a level that will annoy and antagonize local community residents. These two models are valuable to the extent that they highlight the fact that negative social impacts will most likely be deepened if tourism is not well planned, managed and developed. They are also powerful, to some degree, in explaining the growing irritation on the part of the community residents, which has been supported by early studies (Pizam 1978; De Kadt 1979). However, they cannot explain well the variations among residents within the same community. This is basically because both models assume a degree of homogeneity and unidirectionality in community (Faulkner and Tideswell 1997), which ignores intrinsic factors associated with the members in the community, such as individual demographic and sociographic characteristics. However, heterogeneity exists among community residents (Ap 1992; Ap and Crompton 1993; Fredline and Faulkner 2000). Focusing on intrinsic factors, social exchange theory stands out and perhaps can make the most valuable contribution towards progress in the theoretical analysis of various attitudes toward tourism within communities (Fredline and Faulkner 2000). Social exchange theory is originally a relationship maintenance theory that looks at how people arrive at their decisions in relationships. It posits a matrix system

186 Jiaying Zhang et al. of measuring outcomes, taking into account the actions of others, rewards and costs, comparing results, dependence and control, prediction, and transformations. In essence, it suggests that an individual is most probably willing to engage in an exchange if the outcome is rewarding and valuable, and the negative results do not outweigh the benefits (Skidmore 1975). The theory has been adapted widely by tourism researchers since the 1990s (Perdue et al. 1990; Ap 1992), especially after Ap’s adaptation in 1992. In the tourism context, social exchange theory views community attitudes towards tourism development as a trade-off between the benefits and costs perceived by community members. A resident is more likely to be inclined towards and supportive of tourism development if he/she perceives more favourable impacts (benefits) than negative impacts (costs) from tourism development. Since the way of evaluating the costs and benefits differs within a group of community members, models based on the social exchange theory have been developed to explain these variations better (Ap 1992; Gursoy et al. 2002). Gursoy et al.’s model asserts that ‘the state of the local economy’, ‘perceived benefits’ and ‘perceived costs’ contribute directly to community’s ‘support for tourism’, while ‘community concern’, ‘ecocentric attitude’ and ‘utilization of tourism resource base by residents’ have the indirect contribution. However, the interrelationship between and among each construct specified in their model needs to be tested further due to the complex nature of these interrelationships. Another notable theoretical approach is the employment of social representations in study of attitudes towards tourism. Social representations theory was first used by Durkheim (Sugiman 1999) and expanded by Moscovici (1988). Representations refer to the mechanisms that people utilize to understand the objects around them. In the context of tourism, residents view the impacts of tourism through the social representations of the industry in the community. The sources of these social representations can be divided into three groups: direct experience, social interaction (such as interaction with tourists, family, friends, colleagues, strangers etc.) and media (Fredline and Faulkner 2000). The key to identifying social representations within a community is that of distinguishing similarities in residents’ perceptions (Pearce et al. 1996). With the focus on the impacts of intrinsic factors on a community’s attitudes toward tourism and the relationship between perceived benefits and attitudes, this study adopts social exchange theory as the research design foundation in regard to attitude. Influential Factors Intrinsic factors associated with community residents contribute to the heterogeneity of community. Tourism attitude literature has revealed a large number of factors affecting community attitudes towards tourism: gender (Ritchie 1988; Weaver and Lawton 2001); age (Madrigal 1995; Fredline and Faulkner 2000; Weaver and Lawton


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2001); ethnicity (Var et al. 1985); proximity to resort (Madrigal 1995; Jurowski and Gursoy 2004); length of residency (Liu and Var 1986; Allen et al. 1988); native-born status (Davis et al. 1988; Canan and Hennessy 1989); political position in the society (Mansfeld 1992); level of contact with tourists (Davis et al. 1988; Akis et al. 1996); and knowledge about tourism (Liu and Var 1986; Davis et al. 1988). Each of these reported factors contributes to the understanding of community attitudes towards tourism. However, extensive literature reviews suggest that several factors are less well studied and need further research. Two of them, of particular interest here, are personality traits and ethnicity. Personality traits Interestingly, there is a paucity of studies into the impacts of personality traits on resident’s attitudes towards tourism in the mainstream literature. As an important intrinsic psychological factor associated with an individual resident, personality may play an important role in forming a resident’s attitudes towards tourism. For example, it is logical to hypothesize that a person showing a strong ‘neuroticism’ personality trait may be nervous and anxious with the presence of large numbers of tourists. As a consequence, this person is more likely to hold negative attitudes towards emergence of mass tourists. Similarly, it may also be hypothesized that a resident with a high degree of ‘openness’ may be more open-minded to future tourism development, and consequently hold a pro-tourism attitude, than those who exhibit less ‘openness’ in personality. However, no published research has been found to test these hypotheses, which might be explained partially by the lack of a sound personality model. The development of personality research in the 1990s provides tourism researchers with a better theoretical foundation. Ross (1994: 31) suggested that there could be ‘no more appropriate or useful study than personality as it illuminates tourist behavior’ with the evolvement of personality study. This study employs the criteria outlined in McCrae and Costa’s (1996) Five Factor personality Model (FFM) to identify residents’ personality traits. The underlining relationship between personality traits and attitudes towards tourism will then be examined with the hope of identifying the influential personality traits. In brief, FFM suggests that a person’s personality can be measured by five dimensions which are commonly referred to as OCEAN – Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. These five dimensions are held to be a complete description of personality. The choice of FFM in this study is based on three considerations. First, FFM is currently the most popular approach among psychologists for studying personality traits; the utility of FFM in measuring personality has been reported widely. Secondly, the factors in FFM are stable over a 45-year period beginning in young adulthood (Soldz and Vaillant 1999). FFM suits the age range of the target subjects of this study. Thirdly, though FFM is originally developed for measuring Western people’s personality, the factors in FFM are considered universal, having been recovered in languages as diverse as German and Chinese (McCrae and Costa 1997).

188 Jiaying Zhang et al. Ethnicity Reviews of tourism attitude literature also reveal that ethnicity’s impact on residents’ attitude toward tourism is less well studied. Though the consideration of ‘ethnicity’ is not new and the topic has been studied extensively by cross-cultural tourism researchers, most studies have focused on either tourists’ attitudes towards the host communities of different ethnicity (Amir and Ben-Ari 1985; Milman et al. 1990; Pizam et al. 2000) or hosts’ attitudes towards tourists of other ethnicities (Reisinger and Turner 1997, 1998, 2002a, 2002b). Research into the ethnicity of host residents in determining their attitudes toward tourism and tourists is limited. This is due partially to the fact that most of the published studies were conducted in such areas where community residents are dominantly of the same ethnicity, therefore it is unnecessary to do so. However, the need to study ethnicity’s impact on attitudes is manifest in multi-cultural areas such as Melbourne (where residents from more than 140 nations live side by side) and in border regions such as Yunnan, China. This study will address this research deficiency by examining the role of ethnic backgrounds of community residents in forming their attitudes towards tourists from other ethnicities as a whole. The different approaches to ethnicity between the majority of the current literature and this study are shown in Figure 1. This new approach provides an identifiable way of segmenting communities since residents can be recognized easily in terms of their ethnicity by researchers and planners. In addition to personality traits and ethnicity, this study will also incorporate another eight factors that have been reported frequently in the tourism attitude literature. The authors hope that this attempt can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the antecedents of heterogeneous community attitudes towards tourism.

Figure 1. Different approaches to ethnicity.


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Urban–Rural Fringe While the majority of tourism attitude studies focus on either rural communities (Brougham and Butler 1981; Liu and Var 1986; Allen et al. 1988; Long et al. 1990) or urban areas (Milman and Pizam 1987; Davis et al. 1988; Gunce 2003), there is little research looking into the urban–rural fringe, which is also termed the ‘peri-urban zone’ and ‘exurbia’. In this paper, this fast changing landscape is considered to be a border region connecting purely urban and rural areas. Unlike in the case of most frontiers between two nations, the urban–rural fringe does not have a clearly delineated boundary. While it is commonly accepted that the urban–rural fringe is a region that does not fit clearly into neat categories of ‘urban’ or ‘rural’, the definition of the extent of this region varies across nations. In Australia, the urban–rural fringe around cities is subject to a degree of planning control (Burnley and Murphy 1995). The size of the Australian urban–rural fringe extends up to 100 km around the mainland capital cities (McKenzie 1996). While the scale and nature of the Australian urban–rural fringe phenomenon is uncommon in North America, there are some observed similarities, such as being drawn widely around larger cities; and low-density residential development (Daniels 1999). In contrast, the European fringe has much less in common with Australia, partly due to its older, more compact cities and higher population densities (Alterman 1997). Nevertheless, the Australian fringe shares similarities with Britain because of policy legacies (Bunker 2003). A notable characteristic of the urban–rural fringe development is its rapid change. It is one of the fastest changing landscapes and is becoming increasingly complex due to multi-faceted demographic change, a broadening economic base and demands for better environmental management. In the context of tourism, research into community attitudes in urban–rural fringe lags considerably behind the rapid tourism development in this region. An exception is the study undertaken by Weaver and Lawton (2001) at Tamborine Mountain, located within the urban–rural fringe of Australia’s Gold Coast. It is believed to be the first to recognize explicitly the attitudes of residents to tourism in the context of the urban–rural fringe. Adopting the model of Faulkner and Tideswell (1997), their study investigated the impacts of both extrinsic (such as stage of tourism development, tourist ratio) and intrinsic factors (such as residential proximity, period of residence and involvement in tourism) on attitudes towards tourism in urban–rural fringe communities. They have also called for similar investigations to be conducted in a broader array of urban–rural fringes. Unfortunately, no published paper seems to have appeared in the mainstream literature since Weaver and Lawton’s (2001) study. To address this shortcoming, the authors chose Melbourne’s urban–rural fringe as a study area. Host–Guest Interaction ‘Tourism may be regarded as consisting of tourists, a business, and an environment of community in which this industry operates’ (Williams and Lawson 2001: 269). To

190 Jiaying Zhang et al. develop the tourism industry in a sustainable manner, the interrelationship between various elements in this system must be studied further. The interaction between host residents and tourists is one such interrelationship. Pizam et al. (2000), through a study of 388 working tourists in Israel, found that the social relationship between hosts and working tourists could affect tourists’ feelings, satisfaction and attitudes towards the destination. Their study demonstrated that the higher the intensity of the social relationship between hosts and working tourists, the more favourable were the tourists’ feelings towards their hosts, and the more positive was the change in attitudes towards hosts and the destination. It also reported that the higher the intensity of social relationship between hosts and tourists, the higher was the satisfaction of these tourists with their stay and experience. Drawing on their findings, it is not difficult to conclude that a destination with residents who demonstrate apathy towards tourists will most likely not encourage repeat visitation. Without a high level of return visitors, the destination must continually attract new customers. However, efforts to attract new tourists, such as repositioning of the tourism product and remarketing for new tourist market segments are more risky and expensive than continuously targeting a satisfied market (Reisinger and Turner 1998). The interaction between hosts and international guests raises another issue linked to cultural tolerance. As argued by Bochner (1982), the mutual understanding between cultures can create an opportunity for acquaintance leading towards enhanced understanding and tolerance and, consequently, reduce prejudice, conflict and tension between hosts and tourists. However, the majority of studies on cross-cultural contact have focused on situations aside from tourism. Pearce (1982) was one of the first to put the cross-cultural contact in the tourism context. Unfortunately there has been only limited research since Pearce’s recognition, most of which has focused on either tourists’ attitudes towards the host communities or host attitudes towards tourists from other cultures. Research into the role of hosts’ cultural backgrounds in determining their behaviour toward tourists is even more limited. Destination community residents’ behaviour in interacting with tourists is important for the long-term development of the tourism industry. First, it influences directly tourists’ satisfaction and attitudes toward the hosts and destinations. Indirectly, tourists’ attitudes toward hosts and destinations may affect their decision regarding repeat visitation. Furthermore, these tourists may spread their impressions, feelings and attitudes concerning the destination among their families, friends and colleagues by sharing their travel experience with them. All these will affect the destination’s ability to attract return visitors as well as to generate new visitors. Unfortunately, in the existing literature the theoretical framework underpinning an understanding of the way that host behaviour interacts with tourists remains simplistic. An exception is the study conducted by Carmichael (2000), which highlights the interrelationship between behaviour, attitude and perception in the context of casino


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Figure 2. Carmichael’s framework linking attitudes and behaviours. Source: Carmichael (2000: 604).

development. The study reported a statistically significant relationship between residents’ attitudes towards the casino and related casino-using behaviours. The contribution made by Carmichael’s study is that it attempts to understand residents’ tourism behaviours by borrowing a theoretical model from another discipline, i.e. a modified version of Abler’s matrix model (Figure 2; Carmichael 2000) developed in geographical literature. However, Carmichael has also realized the simplicity of Abler’s model because it ‘does not incorporate social norms, motivation and group compliant behaviour as in the Ajzen and Fishbein more complex expectancy value models which involve the theory of reasoned action’ (Carmichael 2000: 605). The lack of a theoretical framework has limited the progress of host–guest interaction studies. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop such a theoretical framework which is suitable for understanding and predicting this behaviour. One valuable approach is to employ and test those social psychological theoretical frameworks such as the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), suggested by Carmichael (2000), the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB, the extension of the TRA) and the Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour (TIB). As the leading theoretical models in behavioural study, the TRA and TPB have been referenced and supported extensively in many behavioural research fields such as those relating to health, technology adoption (Lynne et al. 1995), sex (Bryan et al.

192 Jiaying Zhang et al. 2002), diet (Conner et al. 2001), decision-making (Davis et al. 2002), career-choosing (Millar and Shevlin 2003), smoking and alcohol usage (Hu and Lanese 1998), driving (Elliott et al. 2003), consumption (Berg et al. 2000) and the activities of physicians and nurses (Dwyer and Mosel Williams 2002). The Theory of Reasoned Action has its roots in expectancy theory. During the early 1970s the theory was revised and expanded by Ajzen and Fishbein. Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) proposed the Theory of Reasoned Action attempting to establish a relationship among beliefs, attitudes, intentions and behaviours. The theory has two assumptions: first, humans are rational beings with the ability to process and utilize the information available to them; and, secondly, humans use this information to achieve a reasonable behavioural decision (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980). According to the theory, the determinant of a person’s ‘behaviour’ is his/her ‘intention’ to perform the specific behaviour, while ‘intention’ is, in turn, a function of his/her ‘attitude’ toward the behaviour and his/her ‘subjective norm’. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen 1985) is an extension of the TRA. As the TRA began to take hold in social science, Ajzen and other researchers realized the inadequacy and limitation of this theory. One of the greatest limitations is with people who either have little or feel they have little power over their behaviours and attitudes (Gatch and Kendzierski 1990). Ajzen described the aspects of behaviour and attitudes as being on a continuum from one of little control to one of great control. To balance these observations, Ajzen added a third element – the concept of perceived behavioural control to the TRA. The addition of this element has resulted in the newer theory known as the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). According to the TPB, the more favourable the attitude and subjective norm, and the greater the perceived control, the stronger should be the person’s intention to perform the behaviour in question. Triandis’ (1980) Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour (TIB) encompasses many of the behavioural determinants found in other models such as the TRA and the TPB. It also considers cultural, social and moral factors that are unaccounted for in other theories. According to the TIB, ‘behaviour’ is determined by three dimensions: ‘intention’, ‘facilitating conditions’ and ‘habit’. Similar to the TRA and TPB, ‘Intention’ in the TIB refers to the individual’s motivation regarding the performance of a given behaviour, but differs from the TRA and TPB in terms of its determinants. In the TIB, ‘intention’ is formed by five constructs: ‘affect’, ‘perceived consequences’, ‘perceived social norms’, ‘personal normative belief’ and ‘self identity’. ‘Facilitating conditions’ represent objective factors that simplify the realization of a given behaviour. Conversely, barriers consist of factors that can impede or constrain the realization of the behaviour. ‘Habit’ constitutes the frequency of occurrence of the behaviour. As suggested by Triandis, habit can also exert an influence on the emotive component of attitude (‘affect’). Since the few initial applications of the TIB in 1970s (Jaccard and Davidson 1975; Seibold and Roper 1979), this approach has received little attention, while the TRA


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and TPB have taken the leading role. However, TIB has gained popularity since the late 1980s. Recent examples of TIB’s application can be found in wide-ranging behavioural studies such as those relating to smoking (Boissonneault and Godin 1990), condom usage (Boyd and Wandersman 1991), driving (Parker et al. 1995) and exercising (Valois et al. 1988). It is noticeable that many of these studies have applied not only the TIB, but also the TRA and/or TPB for comparative purposes. A few researchers have suggested that the TRA and TPB should consider including some of the TIB’s constructs (Manstead and Parker 1995). The TRA, TPB and TIB are all well-established social psychological theories belonging to the school of cognition. All of them have been confirmed widely by many behavioural studies outside the tourism context. The original models of the three theories contain only internal factors associated with the expectancy of the performance of a specific behaviour, but not external factors such as gender, age and personality. The tourism literature has reported positive relationships between these three factors and tourists’ behaviour (Howard 1976; Allen et al. 1988; Frew and Shaw 1999). It is hypothesized in this paper that these factors might also affect host residents’ behaviour towards tourists. As argued by Fishbein (1967), variables not included in the TRA could also affect intention and, consequently, behaviour if these variables significantly affect the attitudes or subjective norms. Examples of these variables indicated by Fishbein include demographic variables and personality traits. Figures 3 and 4 show the hypothesized frameworks developed on the basis of the TRA, TPB and TIB, which are to be tested in this study.

Figure 3. Original and expanded models of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB).

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Figure 4. Original and expanded models of the Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour (TIB).

Study Area The study area is chosen in line with the core objectives of this research. It should be located in the urban–rural fringe and be a popular tourist resort where residents of diversified ethnicities have frequent encounters with tourists. Victoria and its capital city Melbourne are Australia’s most popular attractions for both domestic and international tourists. According to Tourism Victoria (2004), Victoria received almost 1.3 million international overnight visitors for the year ending June 2004. International overnight visitors to Victoria stayed a total of 30.8 million visitor nights for the year ending June 2004, reflecting an average of 23.8 nights. It is expected that there will be 2.2 million international overnight visitors by 2013. In the financial year of 2004, Victoria received international tourists from over 100 different countries, with the United Kingdom, New Zealand, the USA, China, Singapore, Japan and Germany as its primary markets. As the capital city, Melbourne’s destination status is mature in terms of level of investment, visitor numbers, breadth, depth and scale of accommodation, attractions and services. Victorian, especially Melbourne’s residents have numerous opportunities to encounter the different cultures of international tourists. On the other hand, Melbourne itself is known as the cultural capital of Australia and is famous for its multi-cultural population and rich migrant influences. Brought by four main waves of migration, 3.5 million residents from more than 140 nations live side by side in Melbourne, making it one of the world’s most harmonious and culturally diverse communities. Ten communities were finally selected in Melbourne’s urban–rural fringe areas. Residents living in these communities have diverse cultural backgrounds and frequent


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Figure 5. Melbourne’s urban growth boundary. Source: The Victorian Government Department of Sustainability and Environment (2002).

encounters with tourists. All these communities are located along the border of Melbourne’s urban fringe growth boundary (Figure 5) defined by ‘Urban Growth Boundary Plan One’, which was released in 2002, together with ‘Melbourne 2030’ (The Victorian Government Department of Sustainability and Environment 2002). Methodology Questionnaire Design A four-page, self-administered questionnaire, consisting of 69 items, was designed to collect the relevant data. The questionnaire is comprised of five sections of statements, with a covering letter stating the rationale of the project. All the statements are measured on a Five-point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’. Section one contains ten statements regarding the impacts of tourism perceived by community. Drawing on social exchange theory, both positive and negative statements are included (five of each). The respondents are asked to indicate their level of agreement to the attitude statements, such as ‘The general quality of life has become better because of tourism development in my region’. In addressing cross-cultural

196 Jiaying Zhang et al. issues encountered by community residents, three statements relating to this issue are included, such as ‘Tourism development has interfered with our culture and heritage’ and ‘International tourists have helped the local population have a better perspective of another culture’. Section two contains nine statements regarding residents’ tourism-related activities. Three aspects of residents’ activities are assessed: residents’ tourism behaviour as tourists (frequency of residents’ visitation to attractions), residents’ hosting behaviour and residents’ participation in local community’s tourism promotional events. The first aspect is covered by two-item measures which are designed to assess residents’ frequency of holidaymaking and their use of local tourist sites. The second aspect utilizes five items to measure residents’ interacting behaviour with tourists, such as ‘I often recommend local tourist sites to tourists who visit to my region’. Finally, residents’ participation in local community’s tourism promotional events is assessed with two items. Section three is designed to gather information to test the utility and powerfulness of the TRA, TPB and TIB in understanding and predicting residents’ hosting behaviours toward tourists. As suggested by Ajzen (2002), the behaviour to be examined by TRA and TPB should not be general, but be defined in terms of its Target, Action, Context, and Time (TACT). Accordingly, the residents’ host behaviour in this study is defined as ‘interacting/talking to tourists visiting my community in the coming year’, where ‘interacting/talking’ is defined as the Action, ‘tourists’ as the Target, ‘visiting my community’ as the Context and ‘in the coming year’ as the Time. Multiitem approach, as suggested by the authors of the theories, is utilized to measure each construct indicated by the TRA, TPB and TIB. A few constructs are measured with the same statements due to the conceptual similarities of these constructs, for example, the statements designed to measure ‘subjective norms’ in the TRA and TPB are the same as those for the measurement of the ‘normative beliefs’ in the TIB. Section four is designed to capture the personality traits of respondents based on the conceptualization of the Five Factor Model. Ten statements are made to mark respondents’ personality traits in terms of ‘openness to experience’, ‘conscientiousness’, ‘extraversion’, ‘agreeableness’ and ‘neuroticism’, with two statements for each. The personality trait statements are transformed into the tourism context. Finally, section five is designed to obtain respondents’ demographic and sociographic characteristics. It includes ten variables that are reported frequently by the literature relating to the respondent’s age, gender, level of education, household type, distance from major resort, length of residency, place of birth, languages spoken at home, occupational involvement with tourism, and voluntary involvement with local tourism promotional activities. Of particular interest to this study, ‘place of birth’ and ‘languages spoken at home’ are used to distinguish the ethnicity of the residents. Respondents are asked to tick the cell which best describes their situations.


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Sampling Design and Data Collection In addressing the research deficiencies discussed previously, the target sample was finalized as residents who reside in Melbourne’s urban–rural fringe and are 18 years of age or older. The ideal sampling frame for this research would have been a comprehensive database of all residents in the study area. However, accessibility to these databases is limited due to legal restrictions in Australia. Several local councils were approached for their assistance in targeting the sample. Without permitting the authors direct access to its database, Murrindindi Shire Council selected sample residents from the Council’s database according to the stratification criteria (gender, age group, birth place and languages spoken at home other than English) provided by the authors. Questionnaires were posted to and collected from the selected residents directly by the Council. Returned questionnaires were then transferred to the researchers. Whittlesea City Council also gave considerable assistance by providing a database containing a list of addresses selected according to the same stratification criteria. In keeping with legal requirements, the council’s database only contains addresses, without the name and any other private information about the resident. Questionnaires were hand delivered to these addresses. Samples in other areas were selected randomly from telephone directories. The combination of these approaches has provided a relatively comprehensive representation of the population of the study areas. Approximately 6,000 questionnaires with pre-paid and self-addressed envelopes were delivered to the selected residents during November and December in 2004. Returned questionnaires were received from three days after the distribution until January 2005. In total, 1,087 questionnaires were returned, representing a response rate of 18.1 percent. Of these, 58 responses were incomplete; and seven respondents were below 18 years of age. There were 1,022 useful questionnaires after elimination. Data Analysis and Model Testing At the time of writing this paper, data analysis has not begun. However, a series of quantitative analyses will be performed to achieve the research aims. 1. Descriptive analysis and calculation of means will be used to profile the respondents in terms of their socio-demographic characteristics and their attitudes toward tourism in their communities. 2. Correlation analysis will be undertaken to find out the underlying relationship between attitude variables and ethnicity, personality and other socio-demographic variables. 3. Exploratory factor analysis will be conducted on all the attitude statements to extract the main factors of residents’ perceptions of tourism’ impact. 4. Cluster analysis technique will be employed to segment the respondents based on their attitude toward tourism. 3-cluster, 4-cluster and 5-cluster solutions will all be tested. The final cluster solution will be the one which can maximize

198 Jiaying Zhang et al. inter-group difference while minimizing intra-group difference. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be completed on the final cluster solution to examine the significances and to obtain interpretation information. 5. The structural equation modelling technique will be utilized to evaluate and examine the power of the original and expanded models of the TRA, TPB and TIB in understanding and predicting community residents’ interacting behaviour with tourists. Confirmatory factor analysis will be used to assess the measurement models. Likelihood-Ration Chi-square statistic, Goodness-of-Fit Index and Root Mean Square Residual will be considered to assess the fit of the models. Discussion and Conclusions As the host of tourists and the environment where the tourism industry operates, the community plays an important role in the successful development of the tourism industry. Without a supportive local community, it is very hard for the tourism industry to be sustainable (Inbakaran and Jackson 2003). The heterogeneity of community residents makes it complex to understand various attitudes towards tourism in the community. Researchers from varying disciplinary backgrounds have approached the topic from different perspectives, thus, many demographic and sociographic factors have been reported frequently to be influential on community attitudes towards tourism, such as gender, age, life cycle, proximity to the resort, length of residency, involvement in the tourism industry and knowledge about the industry. All these have added to our understanding of the complex community attitudes towards tourism. However, the influence of ethnicity on the formation of community residents’ attitudes towards tourism seems to have been somewhat less well studied. And there seems to be no published paper examining the influence of psychological factors, such as personality traits. The inclusion of these two factors, together with the other frequently reported demographic and sociographic factors listed above, should provide a more comprehensive reflection of the heterogeneity of community residents and hence enable a better understanding of the antecedents of their attitudes towards tourism development. As a sociocultural event for both the guest and host (Murphy 1985), tourism cannot be sustainable without a high degree of harmonious relationship between hosts and guests. However, as discussed in this paper, research into the host–guest interaction in the context of tourism is limited. Theoretical models that can be utilized to understand and predict how hosts interact with tourists remain simplistic. There is an urgent need to establish a theoretical model suitable for predicting this behaviour. A possible approach is to employ and evaluate theoretical models that have been well recognized and widely tested in other behavioural study fields, such as the TRA, TPB and TIB. Compared with either the urban or rural region, the urban–rural fringe needs further research and attention in regard to community attitudes towards tourism and


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host–guest interaction. First, the current tourism literature investigating the urban– rural fringes concerned with these two issues is limited. Secondly, the urban–rural fringe is an attractive destination for tourists. It attracts visitors not only because of its natural scenery, but also because of easy access from major cities, which can save both the travel time and overall costs for tourists. Moreover, the fringe is ‘an ideal site for theme parks, which require both a large amount of relatively cheap land and proximity to urban markets’ (Weaver and Lawton 2001: 441). In many urban–rural fringes, visiting parks has become a key activity for visitors. For example, parks within Melbourne’s urban–rural fringe attracted more than six million domestic and international visitors for the year ending June 2001, the highest visitation of all the tourism regions in Victoria (Tourism Victoria 2003). Thirdly, the development of tourism in the urban–rural fringe, together with other rapid transformations, such as demographic change and land-usage, has generated tension and conflicts in this specific locality. All these require more adequate planning in urban– rural fringe areas. In the context of tourism planning, scholars have suggested that tourism planners must take the views of the host community into account if the industry is to be sustainable in the long term (Allen et al. 1988; Ap and Crompton 1993). Studying antecedents of community attitudes towards tourism and host–guest interaction in the urban–rural fringe will help tourism planners understand the views of the hosts. In an attempt to address the research deficiencies discussed in this paper, a project is being conducted in Melbourne’s urban–rural fringe. At the time of writing this paper, data collection has been completed through a questionnaire survey. A total of 1,022 useful questionnaires have been returned for analysis and model testing. The authors hope that successful outcomes of this study will contribute to the understanding of community attitudes towards tourism and host–guest interaction. Nevertheless, this is just a preliminary effort. The authors sincerely hope that this attempt will stimulate further research in order to provide a better understanding of the antecedents of community attitudes towards tourism and host–guest interaction. References Ajzen, I. (1985) From intentions to actions: a theory of planned behavior, in: J. Kuhl & J. Beckman (Eds) Action-control: From Cognition To Behavior, pp. 11–39 (Heidelberg: Springer). Ajzen, I. (2002) Constructing a TPB questionnaire: conceptual and methodological considerations. Available at: http://www.people.umass.edu/aizen/ (accessed 21 May 2004). Ajzen, I. & Fishbein, M. (1980) Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior (NJ: PrenticeHall). Akis, S., Peristianis, N. & Warner, J. (1996) Residents’ attitudes to tourism development: the case of Cyprus, Tourism Management, 17, pp. 481–494. Allen, R., Long, P., Perdue, R. & Kieselbach, S. (1988) The impact of tourism development on residents’ perceptions of community Life, Journal of Travel Research, 27(1), pp. 16–21. Alterman, R. (1997) The challenge of farmland preservation: lessons from a six-nation comparison, Journal of the American Planning Association, 63, pp. 220–243.

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Notes on Contributors Jiaying Zhang is a PhD student of tourism in the School of Management at RMIT University, Australia. His research interests include community attitudes towards tourism development in the urban–rural fringe and host–guest interaction. Robert J. Inbakaran is a Senior Lecturer in tourism in the School of Management, RMIT University, Australia. Mervyn Jackson is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at RMIT University, Australia. As a psychologist, he is interested in and completed research in the following areas: tourist personality, attitudes toward tourism development, health and tourism, tourist crime victimization and cross-cultural tourism. Résumé: Comprendre les attitudes des communautés envers le tourisme et les relations entre hôtes et invités dans une zone de contact entre l’urbain et le rural Il est capital de développer une meilleure compréhension des attitudes d’une communauté envers le tourisme ainsi que des relations entre hôtes et invités pour assurer un développement du tourisme durable. Il existe cependant des lacunes considérables dans ces deux domaines de recherche. Cet article examine ces lacunes au moyen d’une revue de la littérature et cherche a` procurer des solutions suggérées par un projet de recherche mené a` Melbourne, Victoria, Australie. Surtout, alors que cet article se penche sur les conséquences de la personnalité et de l’ethnicité sur les attitudes d’une communauté envers le tourisme et qu’il souligne le besoin urgent d’établir un cadre théorique solide pour comprendre et prédire l’interaction entre hôtes et invités, il examine ces questions dans le contexte d’une frange de contact entre des zones nettement rurales ou urbaines.

Mots-clés: Attitudes d’une communauté, interaction entre hôtes et invités, frange urbaine et rurale, modèle des cinq facteurs, théories des valeurs attendues

Zusammenfassung: Zum Verständnis der Meinungen von Gemeinschaften zum Tourismus und der Wechselwirkung Gastgeber-Gast in städtisch-ländlichen ¨ Ubergangsregionen Ein verbessertes Verständnis sowohl der Meinungen von Gemeinschaften zum Tourismus als auch der Gastgeber-Gast-Wechselwirkung ist unerlässlich fur ¨ eine nachhaltige Entwicklung des

204 Jiaying Zhang et al. Tourismus. Trotzdem bestehen weisen diese beiden verwandten Forschungsfelder noch erhebliche Mängel und Lucken ¨ auf. Der vorliegende konzeptionelle Beitrag nimmt sich diese offensichtlichen Lucken ¨ durch die Besprechung der Literatur vor und versucht anhand eines laufenden Forschungsvorhabens in Melbourne im australischen Bundesstaat Victoria Lösungen anzubieten. Während der Aufsatz die Auswirkungen von Persönlichkeit und Ethnizität auf Meinungen von Gemeinschaften zum Tourismus behandelt und auf die Dringlichkeit eines wohlbegrundeten ¨ theoretischen Rahmens zum Verständnis und der Vorhersage der Gastgeber-Gast-Wechselwirkung hinweist, arbeitet er die vorgenannten Fragen auch im Kontext des städtisch-ländlichen Randes auf, ¨ der Ubergangsr¨ aume von rein ‘städtischen’ und rein ‘ländlichen’ Gebieten.

Stichwörter: Meinung von Gemeinschaften, Wechselwirkung Gastgeber-Gast, städtisch-ländlicher Rand, Fünf-Faktoren-Modell, Theorien der Erwartungswerte